As Mr. Morgan and Mrs. Dobeck prepare to leave GP for new adventures after the 2024-2025 school year, they have some final words. Both teachers have taught here since the school opened and have several messages and memories to share.

Mrs. Dobeck,

Q: What are you doing next after moving on from GP?

A: I’m still going to be teaching, but I’ll teach at an international school. Just somewhere else.

Q: How do you feel about leaving in general? Are you excited? Sad?

A: I think it’s mixed. Mr. Morgan and I have actually talked about this a lot because we are so excited to have a new challenge in life, but also GP has been so amazing. It’s really hard to leave behind everyone and the kids are so great, you guys are amazing. So, mixed emotions.

Q: How was your time at GP as a whole?

A: Oh it’s been amazing. I was here when the school opened, so I got to go through the experience of creating a culture and all of the things that we do every year. And so to see you guys as students evolve has really been the coolest. And how you’ve changed and made it through COVID and all the things that have happened in that time.

Q: What has been your favorite moment at GP?

A: Oh my gosh, that’s so hard. Okay, probably this year at homecoming when two of my favorite girls of all time shouted out our class during the homecoming dance routine. That was very cute.

Q: What has GP taught you? How has teaching here helped you grow?

A: Being at GP, I had so many amazing students, parents, and teachers that supported me, so they helped me take big jumps. Like I shifted from teaching Spanish to teaching history, which was really scary, but everyone was so supportive and so nice. I took over AP after a really well known teacher retired and it was really scary, but everyone was so nice and so helpful. So we’re just a family and that’s the most important thing in a school: being a family.

Q: If you had one message for GP students before you left, what would it be?

A: Be nice to your teachers. Because they’re the ones that will write your recommendations to get into college.

We asked Mr. Morgan the same questions. Here are his words:

Q: What are you doing next after moving on from GP?

A: I’m moving to Japan, we have a house out in the country there that we are going to renovate a little bit, and then we’re going to buy what the Japanese call a camping car. It’s basically an RV, and so we’ll be traveling around Japan doing that. So those two things will take up probably about the first year we’re in Japan. And then we’ll be traveling a lot, traveling to Asia because Japan is such a nice launching off point to go to Taiwan for example, maybe Thailand, or Singapore, so it’s a nice jump from there.

Q: How do you feel about leaving in general? Are you excited? Sad?

A: Oh definitely bittersweet. In terms of leaving the job, I won’t miss lesson planning, I won’t miss grading, but I’ll miss the students and staff here at Glacier Peak. I’ve been very fortunate to work here for 18 years or whatever, so I’ll miss that. And I’ll miss Washington State. It’s a beautiful state with the mountains and the rivers and the ocean and all the stuff that Washington has to offer, I’ll miss that. I’ll miss the climate, I like rain, I like clouds, and I like cool weather, and Japan’s gonna be very hot in the summertime, and I dislike that with a passion. So I’ll miss that and my family is here too. My dad is 93 and we get together every week and have breakfast together and shoot three games of pool and he beats me about 75% of the time, not too bad for 93. So that’s kind of a problem. That’s one of the problems with international relationships, somebody’s always gonna be away from the family, so my wife wants to be back there and help her family. And I like Japan a lot too. I’ll probably come back in and visit yearly hopefully. At the most every two years, but we have our kids over here too still, adult kids, but we’ll be coming back regularly.

Q: How was your time at GP as a whole?

A: I would say as a whole it was very positive. Very enjoyable. You know, like any job, there’s gonna be pains, and so there are pains once in a whole, but everything in balance. I consider myself very fortunate to have worked in the Snohomish School District and even more fortunate to have worked here at GP.

Q: What has been your favorite moment at GP?

A: I just kind of like the cycle of the school year. The excitement of opening up the school in September and seeing everybody, and then all the games and assemblies; I just like the tradition I think. So I guess the biggest thing is just the traditions of school life. The traditions are the heartbeat of school life. Winter vacations, spring vacations, the dances, the homecoming dances, the football games.

Q: What has GP taught you? How has teaching here helped you grow?

A: It’s made me realize that I enjoy being a lifelong learner of AP World History, I’ll never stop learning, so I never got bored teaching the topic. There’s always something new. More information and a different spin on things, so it made me realize how much I like learning and enjoy that. And two, I’ve kind of enjoyed identifying with the life and travails of 16-year-old kids. It kind of reminds me of when I was in high school a little bit, and reminds me of what it was like to be a 16-year-old, you know, 50, 4o years ago.

Q: If you had one message for GP students before you left, what would it be?

A: Don’t burn any bridges right now. Keep as many options open as you can and do that by trying your best at everything. Even if it doesn’t seem like it’s gonna be relevant at this point, it very well could be relevant at some point later on in your life because you don’t always know how things are going to unfold. I had no idea that I would end up having such a Japan connection when I was 16. My life took a totally different turn that I would have never expected so keep all your options open.